The Leonhard Blog: As Long As Gisele Is Okay

In his latest installment of the blog, New York Jets safety Jim Leonhard talks about the upcoming game against...oh who is that on the schedule again...oh right - the Patriots.

Jim Leonhard blogs exclusively for GreenAndWhiteReport.com - are you a subscriber with access to practice reports, breaking news, game previews and full game coverage? Become one today!

Whew, what a week. The usually hectic Thanksgiving schedule is made far more complicated with a football game that night. But it was a good few days for us, capped off by a 26-10 win for the Jets!

I know I blogged about this a couple weeks ago, but my wife Katie, and I were fortunate to have our families come out to the Cincinnati game on Thanksgiving. Katie put together a great dinner on Friday. It took all of us some time to recover from the ridiculous amount of food consumed. I hope to see some more family in Chicago when we play after Christmas. Shopping is just starting, so let the madness begin. We will be doing everything in our power to avoid the malls until after Christmas.

And now, of course, it is on to the game that everyone has been talking about since, oh, I don't know…let me see…Week 2?

New schemes are employed every single week in the NFL, but when facing a great coach like Belichick and a quarterback like Tom Brady, the coaching staff know they must pull out their best stuff.

And of course, a lot is being made about Rex vs. Bill. I'm waiting for a microphone to come down and someone to say "Welcome to the main event!"

All it is is just two highly competitive coaches that respect each other's success. Bill Belichick is respected as one of the greats to coach the game and Rex wants to get to that level. The two of them are examples that you can obtain team success in many different ways. Both coaches stay true to who they are in their coaching styles, which is what makes them great coaches. They are both extremely blunt and honest with their players, which makes it easy for their team to follow them.

One coach just likes to let the fans and media know his thoughts more than the other one does.

And of course, I will be facing perhaps the greatest quarterback of my generation.

Everyone likes to talk about Tom Brady, even his hair. Well, the "do' seems to be working out for him. As long as it doesn't become a distraction to the team and Giselle is happy with it, I think people should just let him do his thing.

We'll need to be strong though. New England has been a team that is known for finishing games strong for a long time. Consistency has been our struggle since Week 1. We have been fortunate to find ways to win games while not playing our best. At the same time, we realize that in order to beat great teams you must not make mistakes or have lapses. We feel like we are starting to hit our stride entering December. This is the time of the year that the best teams separate and we feel like we are ready to take that step.